


out of the bag

by crowlord



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Galra Keith (Voltron), Humor, M/M, This Is STUPID, but was written entirely at like 1 am so im sorry, i dont know, im so sorry but also, is like a cat more than a bloodthirsty alien, like it looks like it might be angsty and it kinda is but, more along the lines of keith is a fkn furry, this is kinda mostly to shake off writers block
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 02:52:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7490412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowlord/pseuds/crowlord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance begins to doubt the humanity of one of his fellow paladins. It's not as dramatic as you may expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	out of the bag

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks to illuminatingsceadugenga for betaing, the fic! Also for providing the ideas and motivation to write! Also for the whole getting me to watch Voltron thing. Shoutout to you, my dude.
> 
> Anyways, this was the product of several nights of being up at 1 am, and I hope you all like it!

It started one night at dinner. Hunk made the meal, as was becoming more and more common. Coran was a bit miffed, understandably, but he had agreed when he found that his charges seemed to prefer food they could recognize. 

Pidge, surprisingly, had also found a place in the kitchen. Food goo, they had said, was ideal for... For something. Trying to understand much beyond that was a sort of rabbit hole of technobabble, nobody seemed quite sure what it was. Pidge gave a sunny grin when asked, before dodging the question.

"But really," persisted Shiro, "we just want to know if this is a productive use of your time. Pidge--"

Pidge had turned entirely away from their leader. 

"Keith, you've got something on your face." They pointed just below their own mouth. "Right about here."

Grunting a sort of awkward thanks, Keith attempted to wipe his mouth, while Shiro desperately tried to regain Pidge's attention. They were chatting with Hunk and Allura now, and definitely not giving any mind to anyone they had been talking to, which left Lance the only one to watch, stuck between horror and a kind of weird awe, as Keith licked the side of his hand before pawing at the offending food(?) that Pidge had pointed out.

His initial thought was 'what the fuck', followed closely by 'gross', and then, 'he looks kinda like a cat'. Wait, Lance told his brain to rewind. Keith just pulled a move that, unless he just didn't know better, would be damning evidence towards his being a furry, and if there was anything Lance would never let him live down, it would be that. Now he just needed a second witness.

"Hunk, did you--" he's cut off by a peal of laughter from the princess, as Pidge pulled off an (admittedly flawless) impression of Coran. Shiro's face is still buried deep in his palm, and a loud noise from the kitchen reminded him that the real Coran missed the moment as well. Only one course of action remained.

"Keith," he began, his voice quieter than usual. 

The red paladin's nonchalance was unnerving. "You shut up for a good fifteen seconds there, I think that's a record."

Lance chose to ignore the challenge. "Keith, what the everloving quiznak was that?"

"What was what?" He tilted his head slightly in confusion. 

"The-- the whole licking thing! With the whole," Lance mimicked the motion with his hand, " _thing._ "

"Huh? I thought everyone did that."

Normally, he'd expect foul play, but Lance knew Keith to be too bad of an actor to hold a poker face that well. On the plus side, it didn't look like he was deliberately messing with Lance's head. On the minus side...

A millisecond’s deliberation and a lifetime of optimism led him to the conclusion that there wasn't much of a downside at all. Maybe that's what happens when you live in a shack by yourself for a few years. Whatever it was, there was a prank goldmine, fit for unearthing, and Lance knew just the man for the job.

He was that man.

\---

Or maybe he wasn't, Lance realized, as a whole seven days had gone by without any further investigation as to why Keith seemed perfectly at home with acting like a feline when nobody else was looking. Now that he'd seen it once, he began noticing it more and more frequently. Keith licking his hand before rubbing at his eye, or pushing his hair out of his face. 

Or now, as he absentmindedly tongued a cut on the side of his wrist from a bit too long in the training room. Lance held his bayard at ready, protective of his teammate as well as his own legs, which the simulation seemed to like targeting today. It reminded Lance strikingly of a boss from one of his old video games, the way it swiped across the ground, first with one whiplike arm, then the other. 

Keith, on the other hand, seemed to be experiencing none of the glee that Lance felt. A hissed stream of expletives erupted from his mouth as he was grabbed by the ankle, and dragged across the room. 

"Use the sword, Keith!" Lance bellowed, mimicking the sage advice of the Jedi, as he fired a volley of blasts at their enemy. 

"I'm trying, asshat!" came the disgruntled response, as Keith swung wildly at the appendage holding his leg.

"Use the sword as a sword!"

The simulation decided it had enough of dragging, and decided to toss its captive in the air. 

"Quiznak," Lance grunted, as he dashed towards where he assumed his teammate would land. The half-curse was escalated to a full-on "fuck" when the other arm of the gladiator smacked into him at ramming speeds. 

And yet, smacking aside, Lance would be damned if he didn't see Keith stick the landing, both feet firmly on the ground, and a hand for good measure.

"Nice one," he tried to admit, failing with the realization that the wind was knocked out of him. Instead, he gave a thumbs up, and aimed two shots at the base of the limb that was rapidly approaching.

It wasn't until he was in the shower that he realized that cats always land on their feet. 

\---

After begging the resident mechanic for a tool of one-sided prank warfare, Lance found himself actively seeking Keith's presence for once. Never before did he think that the thought "just the two of us" would apply to Keith.

"I suppose this is what it's like when you lock yourself in your room with a screwdriver and a piece of alien tech," he had remarked offhandedly, as Pidge put the final touches on the device in their hands. "The thrill of discovery."

Pidge rolled their eyes. "Nah, not really. Hard as it is to say, I don't think I like what I make _that_ much." They wiggled their eyebrows, to emphasize the feeling that Lance definitely wasn't feeling.

The bout of defensive sputtering that occurred was worth the effort. They laughed roguishly, before feigning seriousness. "But, if you need my help, I would be more than willing to offer assistance." 

Lance offered a salute to his partner-in-pranks, and received one in return.

\---

Keith had noticed the funny looks that he had been getting, mainly from his blue-clad comrade. He had also noticed the fact that Lance no longer seemed to have any sense of privacy, barging in on most all of Keith's solitary musings.

He had slunk to the dining room for the time being, mind flashing rapidly from place to place: his lion, the old shack, the color purple, Hunk pulling him aside to tell him that Lance was convinced he was half-cat. He almost chuckled at that last thought, before some instinct or another kicked into action, alerting him to the presence of another. He snapped to face the intruder, before jumping slightly, as the intruder was far closer than anticipated. 

Lance had turned his chair around, and was leaning with an elbow on the table and an arrogant grin plastered across his face. "What'cha smiling about?" He asked.

Keith rolled his eyes. "I'm not. Go away, you're interrupting--"

"Interrupting what?"

"Interrupting my sentences! And my train of thought!"

There was the sound of a button being pressed, and Keith took note of the oddly familiar cylinder in the other boy's hand. However, before he could really register what it was, another movement caught his eye: a flash of red in the corner of his vision. 

Keith took pride in being able to put two and two together. 

"Listen, Lance. For the last time, I'm-" his sentence was punctuated with a slam of the table, his hands moving before he could stop them, "-not--a--cat!" 

At the last word, Lance sent the beam of the laser pointer across the table, and unable to stop himself, Keith found himself scrabbling at the countertop, all focus diverted from conversation to the pursuit of the accursed red dot. He launched himself at it, reflexes honed from hours upon hours of combat training, to find that it simply evaded his grasp. Lance was doubled over, shaking from laughter, and Keith found himself split between the overwhelming need to chase the beam, and a rapidly growing need to punch Lance in the dick.

"I fucking hate you," he sputtered, beginning to reign in whatever instinct that had taken over. 

Lance had to recover from the sheer ridiculousness of it all before he could process speech. "Wait, what?"

"I said," Keith began, before choking on his words and coughing out something different altogether, "I said- nevermind."

Gathering up the remaining shards of his dignity, Keith bolted out the door.

\---

He had to admit that Keith had a reason to be avoiding him now, but try as he might, Lance never managed to find himself in a room with him any longer. 

This was the opposite of the sort of things that made Lance give up.

He had made a lot of mistakes in his life, but he had always tried to make right (if, of course, he was sure he was in the wrong). He hated owing Keith anything, and an apology was no different. Keith seemed to be entirely avoiding conversation, however, and it was starting to disrupt the team dynamics. Lance would be damned if Zarkon won because Voltron was unable to form all because of a stupid(yet funny) prank he had played on Keith, that Keith-- fell for? Played along with? Lance wasn't sure. 

Lance knew saying something in front of the team would only make the problem worse, yet it had been over a day since Keith had been isolated enough for an apology. Keith was alone when he slept and showered and trained, and Lance figured interrupting the training would simply make him angrier, at which point Lance assumed he would explode. That left sleeping and showering, and, having come from a crowded household, he knew the importance of privacy. 

"Hey, Lance?"

Lance jumped. Hunk sighed slightly, scratching his head. "Sorry, you were looking uncharacteristically brooding for a second there." Lance braced himself for a comment about Keith, which, surprisingly didn't come. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

Hunk fixed him with a look.

"Okay, so maybe not."

Dammit.

"Okay, listen. I just... Messed things up with Keith a little-- not much, y'know, he's kinda touchy-- but I want to apologize and I can't get him alone?"

Hunk quirked an eyebrow, a trick he seemed to have learned from Shiro. "Uh, do you think he might be avoiding you for a reason? Like, maybe because you offended him?"

"Firstly, why would anyone be avoiding me?" Lance chose to ignore the obvious fact that he was digging himself further into a hole, and that Hunk already knew the whole act. He also chose to ignore the friendly, impatient eye roll that Hunk directed his way. "I mean, why would you want to? Secondly..."

He was guilty. Hunk knew this. Lance knew Hunk knew this, and he was pretty sure Hunk knew he knew. 

"Secondly, it's my fault and I'm actually sorry for once, and I really need to get this off my back."

The yellow paladin's expression was sympathetic. "Do you want me to help?" he asked, voice a hint quieter. 

"Erm," Lance froze up, before his ego gave way to his morals, "Yes please. If you were willing, and all..."

"Lance, buddy. We got through Garrison together, we've been friends since before I can remember. This is nothing."

Lance's smirk relaxed into an actual, unguarded smile. "Thanks, Hunk. My bro."

"My dude."

"My guy."

"Old sport."

"Dudelius Ceasar."

"Broseidon, lord of the brocean."

\---

The number one way to keep secrets in the Castle of Lions is to not tell Pidge. Unfortunately, Pidge had a way of knowing things.

"So..." They began, keeping pace with a strangely silent Hunk, "is Lance asking him out, or..."

Hunk sped up as fast as he could.

\---

The problem with making plans through a proxy is that some things don't get communicated. Lance was reminded of this fact when a gloved hand tapped him on the shoulder on the way to bed. He felt his face flush as his mind went through the millions of worst-case scenarios of what could happen in the split second before he was facing Keith.

"Hunk said you wanted to talk to me?"

"Nope." said Lance, instinctively. "Well, at least, not right now." 

With impressively choreographed fluidity, Keith shrugged, rolled his eyes, and turned around, and now Lance found himself to be the one with his hand on Keith's shoulder. How the tables had turned.

(If only Hunk waited until tomorrow, or the day after that, Lance would've been ready then.)

"What." Keith nearly hissed, slinking backwards. 

Lance cleared his throat, trying to keep words from tumbling out. "Well, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry, about that thing the other day, you know, when we were in the dining room-- that wasn't really--"

He was almost thankful that Keith interrupted. "I don't get it."

"What'dya mean by that?"

Keith pondered for a moment. "Why are you apologizing?" He was starting to blush, the embarrassment still fresh in his mind. 

"You said you hated me!" Lance blurted out, and he felt heat rise in his cheeks and the tips of his ears as he realized that, that was it, and that he had been too stupid to piece together what his brain was telling him. 

"You do hate me! You keep saying we're 'rivals' and all this shit, and you shouldn't care if I say I hate you!"

"But I don't!" His mouth and brain were now on the same page, unraveling the puzzle of his thoughts with an audience of the subject of it all. "I don't hate you!" 

_What next?_

"I-- rivals is different!" _Why is that?_ he wondered. "Just because you're my rival doesn't mean that I hate you! It means I think you're a challenge, or... Or I admire you, or something." Oh. That made sense. 

"Wait," Keith looked incredulous, "you, you what? "

Internally, Lance smacked himself, as his mouth finished straightening out the facts in a direct confession. He found his hands heavy on Keith's shoulders, nearly shaking him. "Keith, you idiot, I think I mean I like you."

Keith seemed to turn off for a second, and Lance swore he saw the buffering icon flash across his eyes as his mind processed the facts presented. Then, with jerky, awkward motions, Keith pulled Lance into what could be called a hug, if you hadn't really seen a hug before and had only read about them in the dictionary. "Good."

Now Lance saw the blue screen of death in his head, as his hands absentmindedly migrated from Keith's shoulders, one finding its way into his hair. He absentmindedly scratched at it gently, a smile growing across his face.

"Dude, you're purring."

\---

When Coran ran the castle medical systems and revealed that Keith was not quite as one-hundred-percent human as he had previously believed, Lance nearly choked.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm still not ditching my other fics, I've just needed to get over some writers block, and Voltron is prime material for new stuff. Criticism and suggestions are welcome!
> 
> Note: I headcanon a lot of things here that aren't really touched upon, mainly the fact that the computer simulation fighting has a variety of settings, this one being a sorta grappling one, I guess? And Pidge is attempting to 3D print food goo. 
> 
> Feel free to talk to me on tumblr, at ace-of-crows.tumblr.com!


End file.
